Meet the Judges

Rebecca Burns

Rebecca Burns is a writer of short stories and fiction. Her work has been published in over thirty online and print journals. She has won or been placed in many competitions including the Fowey Festival of Words and Music Short Story Competition. Her debut collection of short stories, Catching the Barrmundi, was published by Odyssey Books in 2012 and was longlisted for the Edge Hill Award. Her second collection, The Settling Earth (2014) was also longlisted for the Edge Hill. Her debut novel, The Bishop’s Girl, was published in 2016, and her third collection of short stories, Artefacts and Other Stories, appeared in 2017, both again published by Odyssey Books. Her second novel, Beyond the Bay was published in September 2018.

Rebecca Burns will act as our chair of judges.

Susmita Bhattacharya

Susmita Bhattacharya was born in Mumbai. Her short fiction has been widely published, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her novel, The Normal State of Mind, was published in 2015 by Parthian (UK) and Bee Books (India). It was long listed for the Words to Screen Prize by the Mumbai Association of Moving Images (MAMI). She teaches contemporary fiction at Winchester University and also facilitates the Mayflower Young Writers workshops, a SO:Write project based in Southampton.

Jonathan Taylor

Jonathan Taylor is an author, editor, lecturer and critic. His books include the poetry collection, Cassandra Complex (Shoestring, 2018), the novel Melissa (Salt, 2015), the short story collection, Kontakte and Other Stories (Roman, 2013), and the memoir Take Me Home (Granta, 2007). He is editor of the anthology High Spirits: A Round of Drinking Stories (Valley, 2018). He directs the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. He lives in Leicestershire with his wife, the poet Maria Taylor, and their twin daughters, Miranda and Rosalind.